Assistant Relationship Manager Review

I am an assistant relationship manager and my role is to help with the admin side of the relationship managers job. This includes speaking with the customers and getting the right forms to and from them, helping with official documentation, issuing statements or appetite and shared relationship plans. I also helping with contacting every customer once every 3 months and I sometimes go out on customer meetings. I also liaise with other teams internally in order to provide a good customer experience. I also create meeting briefs and agendas.

I have received my Professional Bankers Certificate as part of this programme and I am on course to receive my Providing Financial Services. In the role I have learnt how to organise my diary in order to deal with the work load put to me. I have learned how to network and communicate effectively in a variety of ways. I have been on an entrepreneurial day which helped to develop these skills.

The work itself has been quite boring. A lot of paperwork and a lot of repetition day to day. Also, sometimes customer scan be quite abrupt and I have often had customers shouting at me or manipulating the Bank's policies to get what they want which is often deflating. The team is probably what gets you through the day. I built some good relationships with my team and consider a few of them as close friends now and so this is definitely a perk of the job. The culture is not something I particularly agree with. There is a strong hierarchy in the group and as an apprentice, you feel right at the bottom of it. Communication from the top is horrific and I have seen colleagues treated with utter disrespect from the power above. However, my immediate team and line mangers have been understanding and supportive and pulled strings to help me along in my apprenticeship which I am extremely grateful for. I didn't know what to expect when I entered the Bank, I knew it would be something different and new but as the Bank is managed by people about 30 years my senior, it just has not been a pleasant experience. Granted, there are ample opportunities within the RBS group but with the amount of people I have seen leave in my 18 months here, it just hasn't been pleasant at all. In terms of my qualifications, I have enjoyed the Professional Bankers Certificate but the task books for the Providing Financial Services, not so much. My assessor Cherie at BPP is really lovely and supportive and I feel I get on really well with her but prior to her, I had 6 months with an assessor who did not know what he was doing.

My line managers have been great. I have been encouraged by them and they have helped me with a lot in my personal life and I truly think they know me and how I work and what I am like and I have felt respected for that. I feel that the work that I do is appreciated by them. In terms of being an apprentice within the company, I have felt very much just a number in terms of management who I am not in contact with and have never met me. I have felt that I have been employed by the company to just help bring the average age of the group down so that they can be seen as a younger bank with fresh staff, but this has just made me realise that if I was to stay with the group, I would be treated just the same way in 20 years time.

I feel there has been a structure to the programme and I have known when my deadlines are and what I've needed to do to meet those. This has felt more consistent since Cherie came into the role, but again, prior to her, I felt I had very little guidance. The run up to the PBC exam was a bit hazy and I felt the content of what we were taught did not correlate to the exam or the textbook. I also think that when the provider asked for feedback, which many of us provided on many occasions, it was ignored. The intakes after myself still went through the same programme in the same format and nothing was changed. I think to continue improvements to the programme, BPP need to listen to the apprentices a bit more and adjust accordingly.

Cherie has been a huge support. I feel I can talk to her about any issues I've been having and she's put clarity into exactly what it is that I need to do and by when. She is always friendly and happy to talk about anything, and we speak once a month to discuss the work I have submitted and what needs to be done in the next few weeks to bring that up to the level it needs to be. I know that I can email her if I need to and she usually gets back the same day. I've enjoyed working with Cherie. However, the assessors before her weren't quite as supportive and didn't provide as much clarity which I think did have a bit of an impact on my work and meant catching up in later months. But Cherie has been a huge help.

I have had huge support from my managers who have encouraged me to do what is best for me. They have understood my personal situations and adapted my work life accordingly - I moved from Newcastle to Swindon and they helped me to do that whilst remaining on the apprenticeship scheme. It has always been made clear to me where I can go if I do require extra support and if work loads have become to high, I have had support to deal with that also. I'm thankful to my managers.

The salary I receive has enabled me to pay for my wedding as well as meet my living and travel costs. I don't feel like I have ever missed out on a social event because of lack of money and the pay has been extremely good for someone of my age. I can't fault it. I mean compared to other apprenticeships the pay is fairly decent and i can save some of my wages every month.

We get 5 charity days a year which meant that I got to help out with teaching children creative writing. There were also many social events when I was up in Newcastle which I would go to. When I moved to Swindon, I told my boss about my love of acting and he encouraged me to pursue that outside of work. In terms of work events and activities that the team went on, there was none and I would like to have seen classes or days where the team could work together.

No

I feel that taking everything into perspective, I enjoyed working with my colleagues and my managers where good but this is not always going to be guaranteed. For the group as a whole there are an awful lot of flaws and having seen some colleagues treated horrendously by the bosses of the company, I don't think this is a place of work that I would like to stay in. There are also processes for processes for processes and it can sometimes take days to do one simple task and no one has addressed any of these situations - they tend to just add criteria to meet which makes the job difficult and frustrating at times. There is a lot of admin and paperwork and dependant on your location, opportunities can be few. If you are in it for the money then yes definitely but in terms of job satisfaction and feeling like you've had a positive impact on a customers life, I would seriously suggest looking elsewhere.

The interview process is quite long but you understand why when you join the group. The job is completely different to what you will probably be expecting and at times, it is difficult to get the balance of the job just right which is something you should be aware of. If you've never worked in an office before, it can be a bit of a shock as it is completely different to anything else.